Even presidents can learn

After criticism from visitors to his blog - who complained that he lacked a human side - Dmitry Medvedev has responded by taking a trip down memory lane to his old school.

And what did we learn? That you need not be an Einstein, for instance, or even the school football star, to rule the country.

He could have been a good scientist. Instead, he is only a president. Medvedev opens up on his nostalgic back-to-school trip, recorded in his blog.

“School years are different for everyone. I wasn’t the brightest of students, to say the least,” President Medvedev says.

And it was not the only frank confession he made. Walking through his school’s classrooms, he did not quite remember it all.

“Ok, maybe a formula, do you remember any, difference of squares for instance?” was the teacher’s question.

“Nope, I don’t even know what to write. Here: although it’s not mathematics,” Medvedev answered, writing the equation for Einstein’s Theory of Relativity on the black-board.

Apparently, Medvedev fell short of his teachers’ expectations. They were sure he would become a chemist.

“My most successful chemical experiment was the least harmful one; the one that didn’t cause a lot of damage,” the president recalls.

School photo of Dmitry Medvedev

A lot has changed since Medvedev graduated from school in 1982. And some things, like the Soviet past, are hard to forget.

“Look at this,” Dmitry Medvedev exclaimed when he spotted an old, Soviet-era poster. “This poster is from my time. The uniform is just like we used to have. Look – the red pioneer tie… Amazing!”

“And why do we still have this here?” the teacher herself exclaimed in surprise.

“Just in case power changes back to Communism again,” the president suggested.

Over in the gym, he showed that he still remembers how to do chin ups – something he might have practiced. He also knows how to score a goal.

“Can you hit the target?” people on the football pitch asked Dmitry Medvedev.

“Of course, you understand: I hit and you naturally miss. There’s no other option. The president can’t miss,” said the president to the goalie, and kicked the ball.

Visitors to Medvedev’s blog gave him an earful for his lack of a human side. Now they know better: he used to get to the school cafeteria by climbing through the window, liked to burn patterns on wood and was not the best football player.